


Happily Ever Winter

by SkinterTA



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Crushes, Family, Family Feels, Far Future, Flashbacks, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Gen, Growing Up, I've tried to keep together all the canon couples in the background, IceWings (Wings of Fire), Jade Mountain Academy (Wings of Fire), Love, M/M, OCs are just my interpretation of future dragonets of existing characters btw, Reference to Canonical Child Abuse, References to Canon, Sweet, mention of post traumatic stress, mostly from the perspective of healing from it, some of winter's friends and his relationships with them are also included, this is just a nice little fic about winter being like thirty and somehow ending up okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkinterTA/pseuds/SkinterTA
Summary: When Winter was five years old, his family decided that he should die.Winter disagreed. He chose his survival, the right to live his life the way he wanted to, over tradition and everything he had ever known.For the next twenty five years he lived with that choice. Somehow, he grew up to be the dragon standing in front of all these dragonets at Jade Mountain academy, their guest speaker teaching them all about recent developments in scavenger studies.Everything had turned out alright for him, despite his fear that things would never be right for him ever again.Of course, he didn't get here on his own...TLDR; A future fic where Winter is a happy old dragon surrounded by those who love him, and he reflects on how he got there.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Moonwatcher & Qibli & Winter (Wings of Fire), Qibli & Winter (Wings of Fire), Sky/Winter (Wings of Fire)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41





	1. Put Out Fires

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will probably be outdated as soon as book fourteen comes out, but I was having a lot of feelings, okay? I mostly wrote it for fun!

A class full of young dragonets were pretending to pay attention to Winter's lecture on inter-species communication while he pretended to not be thinking about the fact that they could die a horrible flaming death any second now.

Except, that wasn't a fact. It was just a very annoying, ridiculous little thought that Winter needed to drown out with his memorized speech about the similarities between the humanic and draconic written alphabets.

"The fascinating thing is that the two alphabets have similarities, especially in early post-scorching documents, implying a common linguistic origin. Which means-"

Winter kept talking, but he was thinking about fire. Fire, fire, fire. His memory looped over and over again. Screaming and fire and smoke and fire and dead dragonets and fire and-

It was all completely unnecessary. These dragonets were perfectly safe. Jade Mountain Academy was much safer now than it had been when Winter had attended about twenty five years ago. There were animus enchanted gates from his friend Turtle, and well trained guards from Queen Glory, and a population of students who hadn't been forced to fight in wars since they could fly.

He still remembered the bomb, though. The explosion that had shook the stone that had once seemed so sturdy under his claws. The smell of smoke chewing up and spitting out the cool cave air that he had breathed moments before. Carnelian's burned corpse, who had talked to him as just another annoying member of his winglet but still so so alive only just then. Winter remembered trying to save her, trying to share the protective core of cold that lay in his chest, breathing ice breath onto the dragonet who was already a corpse.

"-so the research lends itself towards the hypothesis that before the. The. Sc-" Winter's voice faltered, remembering the scorched bodies. "Scorching, there may have already existed some form of inter-species communication. And so-" Winter went on with his lecture, shooing the unwanted thoughts out of his mind in a hurried way.

It didn't seem as if any of the Jade mountain students noticed his little slip up. Their eyes were, of course, all focused on the guest speakers that every dragonet _actually_ signed up for this lecture to see.

Winter's friends Sky and Wren stood a little bit off to his left. Or rather, Sky stood and Wren sat on his shoulder, as was often the case for the odd SkyWing and scavenger pair.

All the students were looking at Wren with a wrapt fascination, but Wren was looking at Winter. He realized that she must have noticed his little verbal slip up, because she was giving him a curious expression.

The icicle horns all along Winter's spine bristled ever so slightly, which only made her narrow her eyes at him further.

Winter had spent a lot of time with Wren and Sky in the past few years. Almost everyday since they had moved to Sanctuary, actually. The funny thing that he had learned about them over the years was that Wren was much more socially perceptive with dragons than Sky was, and for the most part Sky was much better at reasoning with humans than Wren. She was the "claw first ask questions later" sort of character. Winter figured that it made sense though, considering that the two had grown up with only each other for company. They had learned more about inter-species communication than just the words.

Despite having lived in Sanctuary with Winter for so long, Sky still seemed to be figuring out dragons. He still always asked Winter to come with him when he went to the market place, and Winter always obliged. Sky was friendly to most dragons, in fact seemingly incapable being unfriendly, but being in crowds of dragons made him uncomfortable sometimes, and a few of the times he had gone anywhere alone he always ended up in trouble somehow. Winter probably would've found it annoying if he wasn't also quite a bit concerned about the smaller dragon. He sort of liked being the bigger dragon who could step in and get snappy seal brains to back off if necessary. It certainly felt better than being the dragon who _was_ the snappy seal brain, which he still was sometimes, although not as much as he _had_ been.

Winter couldn't do anything about these students though, as long as Sky insisted on coming with Wren to these lectures. Sky was looking out over the room with that sort of nervous, shy expression he always had when they talked to crowds. He seemed to be trying to avoid meeting any one dragonet's eyes, whipping his gaze around wildly. But then his eyes wandered over to Winter, and he noticed the ice dragon looking over at him.

Sky's face lit up instantly, his shoulders relaxing. He shot his huge, sort of silly smile straight at Winter. Like he was an igloo in a blizzard.

Sky looked that way at Winter an awful lot, and to be honest it always made him feel a little awkward. The way Sky acted around him was like he thought of himself as a seventh circle dragonet admiring a first circle winner. Which always made Winter want to shake him a bit and ask him if he was crazy because _Sky_ was the one who had grown up speaking scavenger! Winter had learned so much from him. About their societies, their language, their sentience. He hadn't even realized Scavengers had any of those things before he met Sky! How could he not act like he was the cooler one in this relationship?

Wren poked Sky in the face and said something in their mixed up dragon-scavenger language. Winter wasn't exactly fluent in scavenger yet, but he could make out her saying the word "moony" in dragon.

Whatever it was she had to say, Sky didn't seem to like it, because he gave a startled look before turning his face the other way very quickly. 

Which was a shame, because Winter had been about to smile back at him...

Winter may have been raised by dragons himself, but age and experience had lead him to realized that they had been very emotionally stunted dragons. So much of his early years had been spent trying to convince himself that his duty mattered more than his emotions. Or anything at all, for that matter.

He remembered the last time he had spoken with his mother. Before the diamond trial. He remembered the exact way that she had looked at him. He hadn't realized it at the time, but she had known that it would be the last time they spoke together. She had been saying goodbye to her dragonet. He hadn't known because she kept it all inside her head.

When he thought about it with what he knew about dragonets now, he decided that his mother had loved him. He hadn't thought so when he was five. He thought the only explanation for his mother and father casting him aside was that they didn't care about him at all. Hated him, even. And maybe they did. And he had been angry at them for that as a dragonet. But mostly angry at himself. Angry that he couldn't be a better dragonet, someone that they could actually love, like his brother Hailstorm.

But now he didn't think so. Cold anger had melted over the years into a blood deep sense of tragedy when it came to his family. He saw now that his mother had been raised the same way he was. Taught that love didn't matter. Winter had spent his entire life up to now unlearning that noble, IceWing Raising. He wished that he had managed better before his mother died. Pushed down his pride and sent a letter to her as Hailstorm repeatedly suggested.

He was still working on it, though which was why he was always looking for little opportunities. Where he felt in his bones "make a noble expression or you'll lose everything" but he would let himself smile anyway.

He wasn't going to smile at the back of Sky's head though, that would be stupid. So he just faced his audience again.

When he announced that Wren would be answering questions, he got another opportunity.

The little talons shot up in the air so fast that Winter held back a snort of amusement. But then he remembered that he didn't have to and let it out!

It was a little thing, but he felt pretty good about it while he swapped places with Wren and Sky, so that they could stand in the center front of the cave while they answered questions. He stepped back a bit so that they could work with the dragonets alone. It wasn't their first time with a class at Jade Mountain Academy. Sunny was always inviting them to come over and give different kinds of scavenger talks. The tentative understanding that was beginning to grow between the dragons and scavengers (or humans, as they called themselves) in Sanctuary was something that had always interested her.

Although, Winter also thought that it might just be that Sunny would be invested in whatever her former students were doing these days. She always got this very proud look in her eyes when she saw Winter. A sort of, "Oh! he's grown so much!" kind of look. Which was very peculiar because she was just about his same age.

He sort of got it, though. It made sense to him, at least, if he remembered what it had been like to be here as a dragonet. When he was five, all the Jade Mountain teachers had seemed quite a bit older than him, but looking back at it it seemed almost appalling to him that a seven year old SandWing had been teaching his winglet of five year olds their Inter-tribal differences class.

 _It was a different time back then_ , Winter reminded himself. Dragonets had to grow up quicker, then. IceWings hadn't always been soldiers as soon as they could fly like he had been. The war had killed off enough adult soldiers that it had seemed necessary, but they didn't do that now. Dragonets were so much safer now than they had been when Winter was young.

He still couldn't manage to feel safe in this cave, though. Not this one.

He had always managed to schedule these talks in the outside classrooms, but it had begun to rain just before they started, and then Fatespeaker had told them they only had one empty classroom and of course it was the one he had been trying to avoid all this time and he almost said no but all of these dragonets excited about scavengers had been looking at him with big eyes and also Sky had been giving this look like "Winter will know what to do about this" and obviously Winter couldn't bring himself to be the rotting fish in everyone's Walrus right? Not over something so ridiculous.

_"What's wrong with you!?"_

_"Don't go in there."_

_"She's dead."_

... It wasn't silly at all. It was awful. Carnelian and that NightWing... Shame twisted in him, bringing the memory of panic and fear to the surface with it. He had been so horrified of their deaths and he hadn't even really known them and he had been disgusted with himself for being bothered by the death of two dragons outside - against, even- his own tribe. But now he was ashamed of that. That he had let his IceWing societal sensibilities outweigh his horror at another dragon dying in front of him. Like so many threats to his life, the bomb had come with little to no warning at all.

Winter found that his nostrils were flaring, trying to detect any faint trace of smoke. Which was not really necessary at all, of course. No need for that at all.

He shook his head, trying to clear this nonsense out of his brain.

Or wait... maybe a healthy, emotionally adjusted dragon wouldn't call his feelings nonsense.

What else was there to call them, though?

"Post-traumatic stress!" Kinkajou had once exclaimed while pointing at him. Winter had been visiting her and Turtle in their little hut by that river in the rainforest, where they had been setting up that adult RainWing reading school.

Winter had just been reading one of Turtle's latest publishings, a story about Pantala and the legend of the Hive, when he had come across the chapter where the main character realized he had been mind controlled by the very dragon he had been fighting. For some surely very strange reason, reading the chapter had made Winter suddenly and violently ill.

Despite having just yurked up the fishy meal Turtle had so courteously provided for lunch hours before, Winter had done his best to look down at his RainWing friend imperiously. "What in all the stars and scales is that supposed to mean?" He had asked.

Kinkajou blinked at him. "You mean you don't know?"

He frowned impatiently. "Why would I ask if I knew?"

Kinkajou had shrugged. "There's just been a lot of scrolls about it, now that the wars are all over and all."

"I'm not reading a lot these days. In dragon, that is."

"Yeah yeah, sure thing mister scavenger-obsessed."

"Did you know that they call themselves-"

"SHHH!" Kinkajou had interrupted him. "You tell me things I don't know about scavengers ALL THE TIME. Let me tell you something you don't know about dragons."

She had proceded to explain to him that post traumatic stress was a term that, according to Moon, seemed to fall in and out of popularity in medicinal scrolls, depending on the frequency of war in each era. Since RainWing Healers are always trained by word of mouth, they seemed to maintain a vague concept of it even when it wasn't prevalent, and that was where Kinkajou had heard the term first. They had used it to refer to the phenomena where life threatening situations, which for RainWings meant things like dragons who got bit by jaguars, would develop fears, such as fears of jaguars.

But in the case of RainWings who had been imprisoned on the NightWing island like Kinkajou had come back to the rain forest, the term began to regain its original meaning.

Some of those who returned couldn't trust the NightWings at all, even a little bit. Some would have horrific flashbacks where they felt as though they were still on the island, after something had triggered them such as the smell of smoke or the absence of the sun. Others had nightmares that woke them up screaming even during Suntime.

"When it all becomes too debilitating for a dragon to live happily, they call it a disorder." She had said, explaining how the same phenomena was observed in dragons who fought in the war.

Winter thought it was kind of odd for other tribes to have healers that were willing to call something a "disorder" just because a dragon wasn't happy. But then he thought for a moment about how few happy IceWing faces he had seen in his lifetime and he got sad for a moment that he had thought that at all.

"Isn't that kind of normal, though? Having nightmares and bad memories, I mean. It'd be weird not to be scared of life threatening stuff."

"Hmm... Maybe you only say that because... you have it and so it's normal to you?"

He had frowned at her. "No, obviously not. I'm perfectly fine. Getting queasy about mind control when I've... When creepy, evil dragons have... It's just reasonable, my reaction, is what I'm saying. Getting a little queasy at all that. I don't have a disorder."

Kinkajou shrugged again. "I mean, I'm no healer, I've just read some scrolls about it. I think they only say you have the disorder when you can tell that a dragon's entire way of processing fear has been fundamentally changed by past trauma, and it causes a significant decline in their quality of life. So there are some dragons like that, but that doesn't mean that everyone who isn't like that doesn't have trauma either. I mean, I know that I managed to deal with the whole... being abducted by a bunch of smokey lizard brains thing a lot better than some of the other dragons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still affect me. I... You know, I still see some of the NightWings who were guarding our cells around sometimes... And I don't like going near the tunnel to their island if I don't have to... And I get a little queasy when I smell some of the dragons that still have that awful bacteria breath and think of all the gross, decaying meat I had to eat..." She shook her head. "Your trauma can still affect you, shape you and your brain in some ways, and to undo it you have to be able to recognize it and work at trying to make life safer and happier for yourself."

Winter felt something ache in him a little. Kinkajou grew up here, in the rainforest where dragons... Where dragons got to know that it was normal to want things to be safer and happier. Where everyone agreed that safer and happier things were good. Winter had never had that before meeting his friends. He wondered how much happiness he could have had if he had known from the start that he didn't need to jump through circles to earn it.

He had been so angry at himself back then.

He had said to Kinkajou, "I know what you're talking about now. In the Ice Kingdom we... They. They call that going soft."

That's how Winter felt about his thoughts right now. They were entirely too soft and silly for his liking. Thoughts like scooping all these dragonets into his safe, cold wings where no fire could get to them.

But of course there wasn't going to be a fire, he was just being extra ridiculous today.

While Winter had been lost in his head, thinking about a fire he had entirely made up, Sky and Wren had been wrapping up the question and answer session.

Winter heard the distinctive sound of the Jade Mountain "end of class" bell ringing through the tunnel that lead to this cave.

"It's lunch." He declared. A few dragonets ran out of the cave eagerly as soon as the bell rang, but some lingered as if hoping to ask Wren some more questions.

Winter usually would applaud other dragons for interest in scavengers, but Sky was making a face like he would rather not be here anymore, so Winter came over to save him.

"Go eat." He ordered, shooing the dragonets out the door. They obliged, but one gave Winter a sort of haughty look before doing so. He should've found that annoying, but it was hard to take such a little snout so seriously.

 _Was I really that little once?_ Winter wondered. Obviously he had been, this cave was so much smaller to him now than it had been when he was a student.

"What's wrong with you?" Winter heard Wren speak in dragon. He assumed Sky was about to answer her, but when he turned around to look at them, he realized they were both looking at him.

"Me?" He asked, blinking in surprise.

"Yeah." Wren had one of her little furry eyebrows raised at him. "You keep giving those kids like a tragic, soulful look. Like they're all about to get eaten or something."

"Oh, don't say that, dragons don't eat other dragons." Sky chided her, but he shot Winter a nervous look as if thinking _Oh no, what if I'm wrong, that would be awful!_

Winter scowled. "No of course not." He said, trying to clearly show his disdain for the idea. "That's not- Nothing's wrong with me at all." Except, wait, was that the emotionally healthy thing to do? "Just remembering a bombing that happened here."

Sky blinked at him. "A bomb-ing?" He sounded out the word.

Oh, yeah. Sky didn't know a lot of war words.

"A bomb is like..." Winter stood up a little straighter. He liked explaining words to Sky. He used to have a lot of trouble not snapping at dragons who asked him obvious questions that were only obvious to him because he had been raised as an IceWing. But Sky hadn't been raised as anything and Winter had gotten used to explaining lots of stuff to him. It made him feel like a kinder, more patient dragon than he really was. He felt that way in general, with Sky. In Winter's family he had always been the weak screw up, and he knew that among his friends he would forever be "the grouchy one" no matter how much they rubbed off on him. Hanging out with Sky... it made him feel different than that. Better, somehow.

Winter squinted his eyes, "I suppose you wouldn't, know much about the dragon flame cactus, would you?"

Sky shook his head.

"It's a cactus that when a dragon lights it on fire, all of the seed pods go flying out with immense force, spreading the fire everywhere. So, it's an explosion. Bombs explode, basically." Winter remembered teaching Sky "explosion" when they went to see that firework show in the Sky Kingdom.

Sky nodded. "Okay, yeah, like the _____ at the Indestructible city." He said a scavenger word in there that Winter would have to remember to ask about later.

He just shrugged for now. "Sure," He said. "So, bombing is the noun form of the verb 'bomb.' When you bomb someone you set off a bomb to make it explode on them. So when I say, 'There was a bombing,' I mean, someone blew up the cave."

Wren's eyes widened, but Sky squinted.

"Wait, maybe I'm misunderstanding. The cave is still here, so it couldn't have blown up, right?"

"Yeah." Winter nodded. "The cave didn't blow up, but the stuff in side did. A. A Mud wing was trying to kill my sister, but she got two other dragonets instead." Winter's patient explanation voice broke at the end, when Sky's expression started to get kind of horrified.

Winter looked away quickly, cursing himself. That was definitely over sharing! This was a terrible plan. Winter was absolutely awful at figuring out whether something was emotionally vulnerable or entirely too personal and awful to have a conversation about.

He stopped himself from snapping "Well you asked!" at them.

"Don't worry about it." He said instead. "The school is safe now, that happened when I was five. So like, 25 years ago."

Winter risked a glance back at them.

Sky was frowning as if he did not find what Winter had said at all comforting, and he was about to say something. Winter ducked away from them, heading quickly outside the cave to signal the conversation was over. Wren nudged Sky to follow him.

 _Ugh, I'm so old now_. Winter thought to himself, _Worry-warting about all these little dragonets for no reason_. He should just stick to worrying about the one dragonet he was supposed to.

"I'm going to go check on Freckle," he announced. "Are you two going to the prey center?"

Sky shook his head right away. "Nope."

Winter tilted his head. "Why not? Dragonets know not to eat scavengers these days, if that's what you're worried about."

Wren frowned at him like it was an insult to think she would've been afraid of getting eaten.

Sky just shook his head again. "No, that's not it." He said. "I just... They let those animals run around sometimes and so I get attached to all the cute little things and then..." Sky trailed off, looking so deeply sad that Winter couldn't mistake what he was saying.

He nodded. "Oh yeah, gotcha."

He was used to Sky's weird vegetarian habits at this point. Winter always told him he'd probably like living in the rain forest, but a lot of the animals and plants there were far more dangerous to Wren than to dragons, and Sky wouldn't want to even visit without her with him.

"I'll just meet you at the entrance, then."

"Yeah, okay." Sky smiled at him again.

Winter wondered for a moment what he had done that was so great, but then he remembered that for some dragons smiling was a normal thing to do when you were happy and not just something you secretly do while your son isn't looking just so he can say that he's never actually seen you smile before so he feels like a failure his entire young adult life.

Winter smiled back at him, but then he got worried that his smile was a bit too toothy, so he turned away again, walking quickly over toward the dragonet dormitory caves.

He'd only turned a few corners of the tunnel when a little ball of black and gold scales barrelled into him.

"Uncle Winter!" The little dragonet who had wrapped her wings around his neck exclaimed. "I found you!"

"Hello, little golden scales." Winter rumbled affectionately, folding his wings around her.

Freckle was a wonderful little dragonet who just so happened to be Winter's Goddaughter. Her mother, Moon, had been doing some diplomatic missions in Pantala before Freckle's egg was lain, and after the egg was nested she came down with a sickness that Pyrrhian dragons didn't have the right antibodies for.

Qibli had to take Moon to seek treatment in Pantala, but the egg had already nested, so he asked Winter to take care of it until they returned.

Winter had been so completely sure that he couldn't do it properly, and he almost wasn't able to when one of Qibli's creepy family members came looking for it. But Winter had fought tooth and claw to protect the egg that would become Freckle and he now found himself very attached to this little dragon who called him Uncle.

Moon and Qibli liked to travel occasionally, and since Winter's work basically required him to be in Sanctuary 100% of the time, he was almost always home and free to babysit. He was also one of Freckle's emergency contacts for Jade Mountain Academy, since he lived a good deal closer to the mountain than either of her parents.

Freckle pulled back from him, giving him a delighted look, and Winter knew that he was returning the expression equally without even having to try.

Winter always thought of the moment she had first hatched when he saw her face.

Moon and Qibli had returned from Pantala just in time for the hatching. Qibli was still catching his breath and Winter himself was still covered in dried blood. Moon had been fretting about not having chosen a name ahead of time, and Qibli and Winter were taking turns giving hurried reassurances, but as soon as the first crack in the egg appeared, all of them went silent and still.

A little, black nose cracked through the top of the egg.

Moon gasped.

 _Is it going to look mostly NightWing, then?_ Winter had wondered. _Like Darkstalker? Will Qibli mind? He better not._

Qibli _had_ looked a little worried, but when Winter asked him about it later he revealed that he had been running through his head all of the millions of horror tales he had heard about hatchings gone wrong.

The nose retreated back into the egg and there was some more wiggling from inside. The nose came out once more with a bigger noise and started snuffling, except... was the nose golden now?

"Two noses?" Qibli had muttered. "Do you think it has two noses? Can it- No, no, it doesn't matter I love it no matter what. Yes, I could have a dragonet with two noses. I-"

Winter nudged Qibli with his wing, half saying "it's okay," half saying, "shut up, wingbeat brain."

Then, the full snout of the dragonet burst through, and the egg fell on it's side, revealing the face of the dragonet wiggling out.

The dragonet looked a lot like Moon, dark scales, straight horns, a sort of gentle face shape, and big grey green eyes. But not all of her scales were black. She had a smattering of gold colored scales all along her snout. As she wobbled out of the egg, she revealed a neck, shoulders, and eventually a whole little hatchling marked with the same distinctive gold scales. They were like-

"Freckles." Qibli said.

Winter made a face. "I was going to say they were like gold coins floating in a puddle of ink. " He said.

Qibli wrinkled his nose at Winter in that amused way of his. "That's a bit too long for a name, fancy scales."

"You want to name her Freckle?" Winter had asked.

"Well, I said Freckles- but wait, actually Freckle is cute, isn't it? It sounds less like a rude nickname and more like a proper name."

"Not a very proper name at all, is it?" Winter had asked. "Don't SandWings name their dragons after... I don't know, desert stuff?"

"Hey, you can find freckles in the desert." Qibli had pointed to the little brown scales scattered across his own face. "And besides, she's half NightWing, and all NightWings have names that are a little 'on the nose.' And guess what's on this little nose?" Qibli had said this last line to the little hatchling, folding himself around her and Moon, lifting his claw to wiggle it in front of the dragonet's nose.

The baby dragon cooed in delight, and Qibli shot Winter this big grin that was partly "Aren't I so clever?" partly "OH MY GOSH I'M A FATHER" and entirely "I've never been so happy in my entire life."

And Moon was smiling too, in a gentle, tired way.

And before that moment, Winter had been worried about how this would feel. Worried that there was some awful part of him that would pause for a moment and be bitter about this moment of happiness his friends shared. But in that moment, his worries melted away, seeming entirely ridiculous. What would he have to be bitter about? An unrequited crush from when he was five? His friends having a happiness that he was excluded from? None of that really mattered at all to Winter just then. Because all that mattered was that two dragons he loved had just become three dragons he loved and they were so, so happy and that was something he was going to protect with his life if he had to.

The dragonet he embraced with his wings in the present day had grown so much, but she was still so little. Her face still looked a lot like Moon's, but the way her lip quirked upward and her eyes sparkled with mischief was all Qibli.

"Hey..." Came a soft spoken voice.

Winter blinked, looking up to see a small IceWing dragonet standing a few feet away, as if she had been following Freckle.

She looked at the dragonet in Winter's wing accusingly. "You said we were going to the library..."

"Sure we are!" Freckle reassured her, "I just thought I could introduce my uncle on the way! You see? He really is an IceWing! His name is-"

"I know who that is." The IceWing dragonet still spoke quietly, but Freckle didn't try to talk over her. "He's not an IceWing."

Ah. Okay. Her quiet voice had made him think below third circle, but Winter realized he recognized this dragonet.

"What do you-" Freckle stopped mid question as Winter withdrew his wings from his goddaughter and put himself into a low, IceWing bow. Even after all these years he had the form memorized completely.

"Princess Frostbite." He acknowledged.

His cousin's youngest daughter looked startled at the sudden formality, as if Jade Mountain Academy had made her unaccustomed to it.

The common IceWing practice would be for the higher royal to acknowledge the bow in order to let the other dragon know they could get up, but Frostbite hesitated.

"I-I'm." She took a breath and puffed out her tiny chest. "I'm not supposed to talk to you!" She declared.

"Okay, but you totally just talked to him though." Freckle pointed out.

Frostbite gasped and then clamped over her jaws with her talons, a horrified expression on her face as if her mouth had just betrayed her into committing a great sin.

 _This poor dragonet,_ Winter thought to himself. _Does she really think just talking to me will get her demoted?_

Winter speculated that the little IceWing was ranked in such a way that she was teetering on the unacceptable for her mother. Winter had never been Queen Snowfall's biggest fan, but he had respected her choice to name one of her daughters after the animus who gave the gift of light. Although, having a name that essentially meant "light bringer" to other IceWings had to mean high expectations. Which didn't seem to be working out for this particular dragonet...

Winter's back began to ache a bit, and he decided he cared more about his spine than about royal IceWing tradition at this point.

When he rose, Frostbite balked at him like he had just murdered somebody.

Freckle was looking at him with a furrow in her brow. "You didn't have to do that." She told him. "I know she's a princess, but really, she's just my clawmate here."

"Um. He kind of does have to, though." Frostbite frowned at Freckle. "That's the rules in the Ice Kingdom. If you don't have a rank you have to bow to aristocrats."

"Well, I don't have a rank." Freckle declared, "And I certainly don't have to bow at you."

"Well... I mean, you're not an IceWing, so..."

"I thought you said he wasn't an IceWing either?"

"No, not at all," The little dragonet looked at Winter frightfully. He felt the anger and despair in him somewhere at those words. But time had worn away at those wounds and he certainly wasn't going to bare his teeth at any dragonets about that snow in the water. He tried to not let the hurt show in his face either. "He broke too many rules."

"So if I'm not an IceWing and he's not an IceWing, and I don't have to bow to you, he shouldn't have to either."

"Well, but I mean, you, you're..." Frostbite looked very troubled by this line of questioning.

Freckle persisted, "You don't believe in every rule you've ever been told, do you?"

"Y-yes!" Frostbite insisted frantically, as if she were being tested.

"What do your rules have to say about hybrids, then?"

Winter felt something in him tense.

"W-well... I mean... I know that IceWings aren't technically allowed to have any, but I think you're really-"

Freckle growled at her, "How can you- you-"

"Freckle," Winter pulled up his tail to lay on her shoulders. "Breathe for a moment."

She looked up at him defiantly, and he tried to convey with a look that he agreed with her, but that name calling wasn't going to help.

"I-I usually think you're quite nice." Frostbite told her clawmate.

Freckle snorted. "Well too bad you have to follow the rules, then." She said icily, "I guess you'll just have to go back to thinking I shouldn't exist. Here. I'll make it easier for you."

She stormed past Frostbite back the way the two dragonets had come down the hall, not giving her clawmate a second glance.

Frostbite did look at her, though. The little white dragon watched Freckle go with a completely crestfallen expression. There was some part of Winter that wanted to snap at her for that. For being so completely crushed and doing nothing about it. Get angry! Fight back! Or else don't say those things at all, snowflakes for brains. Think for yourself!

A lot of the same things he would've said to his past self, if he could. But he wasn't his past self anymore. He was the adult here and after that blow up he felt like he should have done something sooner to de-escelate.

But Frostbite was still here, maybe he could help her somehow, like he wished someone had helped him. He knew that nothing mean would have worked on him as a dragonet, it would've only made him angrier.

What was something that he had always needed to hear, growing up as an IceWing?

"... You are worthy of love."

Frostbite startled so bad at his words that she almost fell over.

"W-what did you just say?" She looked at him with wide, dark blue eyes.

Witer took that as an invitation to speak.

"When you grow up in the rankings, you learn about conditional love." He put to words what had been stewing in his mind for a long time. "Everything feels like a pass or fail test. If you fail enough times, you feel like you've lost the love of your family, your tribe, everyone, and it's all your fault for the mistake you made."

For all the fuss she had made about talking to him, Frostbite seemed to be listening to his words intently, as if they were telling the story of her life.

"But the kind of love that really makes you happy doesn't rely on a pass/fail system. Friends who love you understand that mistakes aren't instantly disownable offenses. Mistakes are opportunities to learn why you were wrong and be a better dragon the next day." Winter remembered how quick to anger he had been as a dragonet. So many times where he had assumed his limited view of the world should come before any other opinion or point of view. He knew better than to assume that now. "Freckle will forgive you if you manage a sincere apology. Her friendship isn't a test you get only one try to pass."

Frostbite looked very hopeful for a moment, but then wariness crossed her expression.

"I, um. Shouldn't talk to you." She glanced behind her once more, as if to check if Freckle had come back.

She had not.

Frostbite looked resigned, turning her face forward and walking around Winter towards the library.

Winter felt that twinge of annoyance again, a little bit of outrage towards the dragonet who had just argued with his goddaughter. But even though he loved Freckle, he could see that she wasn't perfect all the time. She was an exceptionally clever little dragonet, but she wasn't always compassionate about how to use that cleverness. She had decided that her conversation with Frostbite had become an argument and used her brain to win it, but she hadn't understood Frostbite's whole story like Winter could.

Winter frowned. He hoped she hadn't gotten that temper from him somehow. He always tried to be the best him he could be when he was around her, but sometimes that him still argued with shopkeepers when she was around. And Scavenger nippers... but they were just so obviously in the wrong weren't they?

Maybe this tiff with Frostbite would help Freckle grow in some ways. Her and her clawmate were both so young, and Winter was heartened to think of how much they could still learn from each other.

Winter wondered again at how the Jade Mountain staff always seemed to pick the perfect clawmates. Everyone he knew from Jade Mountain who hadn't died or tried to kill their clawmate because of a war grudge had ended up being best friends with them. Winter himself had ended up friends with basically every dragonet that had been in his winglet. Turtle had made them all these little message tablets that sent instant letters when you wrote on them, and Winter still exchanged messages with Qibli practically every day.

Qibli was one of the dragons who had definitely helped Winter figure himself out the most when they were dragonets. Not that Winter would ever tell him that, that little smug scales.

 _Things are going to be alright here_. He thought to himself.

It was time for him to head home.


	2. Twining Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wren loves seeing all the baby dragons at Jade Mountain Academy, but she'll never be able to stop worrying about her own baby dragon, Sky. He's all grown up now, fully formed scales, talons, and bones. But Wren knows that the softest, squishiest, loveliest part of him is his heart, and the goofy expressions he keeps making at their Ice dragon friend are the first sign that he might trip and spill it all over.

Wren was focusing on maintaining a gruff, dragon-like expression. It was the face that she had learned signaled to dragons that she was one of them and they shouldn't even think about eating her as a possibility.

It was hard, though. Looking at all these baby dragons... They reminded her so much of when Sky was little! She just wanted to scoop them up and point their bright little eyes at wonderful things like snails and turtles and just watch their expressions light up with wonder.

Except that was rather silly, seeing as all these five year old dragonets were about twice her size.

Wren was having a lot of silly thoughts like that these days. She figured it was on account of her age. Most of the humans she knew would have had a couple kids right now, but she had met her brother and Ivy's little ones, and while they were fun to visit, Wren really didn't see the appeal. She thought that she might sign up to raise some more little dragon hatchlings in a heartbeat if she ever thought any dragon would ever be remotely okay with that.

A human raising a dragonet... they probably wouldn't let that happen, even in a combination human-dragon town like Sanctuary.

 _I got pretty lucky,_ she thought to herself, absentmindedly stroking Sky's neck.

Her dragon was always a little bit uncomfortable at these school presentations. Wren knew that he didn't like being scrutinized too much by other dragons. If those Sandstorm and Burn creeps hadn't been well and thoroughly dead, Wren would have flayed their scales for making Sky so self conscious about his odd scale color with their "wierdling tower" nonsense.

Wren trusted that these dragonets wouldn't mind, though. Most of them had odd scale colors too, to Wren's understanding, quite a few of them were hybrids, as was the case in Sanctuary. In fact, the only dragon Wren could completely guarantee was entirely one tribe or the other was Winter, mostly because he had told her so when he was explaining inter-tribal relations to her.

Winter was a dragon who Wren was fairly certain reveled in being a leading expert on a new field of study for dragons, like "scavengers" as dragons called Wren's species. He usually got very excited about talking to the student dragons, which was why Sky always agreed to come. For Winter, excited didn't mean jumping up and down with a big goofy smile like it did for Sky. Winter just got this certain brightness in his eyes and stood taller, talked a little faster. His smiles were always just quick quirks of the mouth.

Except he wasn't smiling right now. He was giving his presentation in this slow, monotonous way, like he was trying to force the words out of him. Since he was the only dragon Wren spent quite a bit of time with besides Sky, Wren had taken it upon herself to study him. He did this odd thing where whenever he had to rest in a still position, he always took of some sort of pose. Everytime he sat he sat in the same pose, everytime he lay down it was the same way, and he had to have the same wings-held-back form no matter where he was standing.

It made it very easy to tell when something was off with him, because his shoulders and wings would droop a few degrees off from his normal position.

Wren could tell that she had read him right when he stumbled over his words. He picked it up quickly, but he shot her and Sky a glance, as if to see if they had noticed. Wren raised her eyebrows at him as if to say, "Yes, I did notice."

Then she felt her dragon's shoulders relax beneath her, drooping suddenly. She turned to look at Sky, who was sending Winter one of his big goofy smiles.

Wren frowned a little. Sky always looked at Winter like all his scales were made of wonderful little snails. She was pretty sure at this point that Sky had a big fat crush on their Ice dragon friend and had for probably a long time now. She was uncertain how to feel about that, because on one hand she wasn't entirely sure she approved of Winter.

They had met him, after all, when they were discovering that he was the dragon behind a series of recent abductions from a human village. She had been fully prepared to chop his kid-snatching claws off, but Sky had insisted on trying to reason with him first, and somehow that had actually worked. Winter had been very enthusiastic to meet a dragon who could speak scavenger, and he seemed to believe them right away about scavengers having more intelligence than dragons gave them credit for. He had taken them to Sanctuary, where Wren had met with the human inhabitants. A few of them desperately wanted to return home, and to Winter's credit, when Wren told him this he took them back right away.

To Wren's surprise, though, most of the humans had wanted to stay in Sanctuary. The dragons there knew not to harm them, and Winter spent a lot of time and energy taking care of them and making sure all of them were alright. A lot of the humans felt safer living in the dragon settlement where no one was allowed to eat them and a big white dragon fretted over them like a mother hen than they had when they lived in villages in constant fear of dragon attacks.

After that, Wren and Winter had worked out an agreement where Winter would stop snatching humans and let Wren spread the word of Sanctuary to people who would want to go there voluntarily.

Then there were a few more years of back and forth, but Wren's age started to catch up with her nomadic tendencies and she needed a more permanent home to rest her bones at night. Her and Sky had decided to move to Sanctuary and Winter invited them to live in his home while they saw about building a place where a human and dragon could cohabitate... But while he was talking to architects and thinking up plans, Wren and Sky had gotten used to living with Winter and now they had sort of just accepted that they would be housemates with the glittery white dragon for the foreseeable future.

Wren thought that Winter was nice enough now, and she liked having a big dragon like him around to growl at dragons who weren't smart enough to be intimidated by Wren herself, but she didn't think there was anything so great about him to deserve this level of admiration from this silly old dragon of hers.

But on the other hand, watching her dragon have a crush was a great deal of fun to tease him about.

She poked Sky in his big old goofy face.

"You're staring, you moony lizard." She whispered in their mixed up only them language.

Sky got flustered, ducking his face away.

Winter looked vaguely... disappointed?

Well, vague wasn't good enough. If he wanted her dragon he needed to be put to tears by losing that smile.

Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic. Very dramatic, actually. Maybe her dragon deserved a little drama though! He deserved everything!

None of her internal indignation seemed to be taken note of by the Ice dragon, who was transitioning from his big speech to Wren and Sky's q&a section. They got up to the center of the room and began to answer the questions of the dragonets. Well, mostly Wren answered the questions. Sky was there too, but he spent most of the questioning time shooting Winter these worried little looks.

Winter had sat off to the side the whole time, but while his sitting posture usually involved holding his wings out like a majestic kite or something, he kept them tucked into himself tightly like he was trying to hold them back from something. Winter didn't have expressions of happiness or sadness that had quite the clarity and over the topness that Sky's did, but he had a lot of distinct expressions conveying that he was trying _not_ to feel something.

Something about him was almost... mournful? The kind of face that called back one of Wren's oldest memories, of a mother dragon who couldn't find the hatchling she had abandoned.

At the end of the class, when Winter was shooing all the baby dragons off to lunch, Wren decided that she just coudn't take it anymore.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked.

Winter turned around to look at them. "Me?" he blinked in surprise.

"Yeah. You keep giving those kids like a tragic, soulful look. Like they're all about to get eaten or something." Wren realized she had used the word "kids" instead of dragonets, but Winter seemed to get her meaning.

"Oh, don't say that, dragons don't eat other dragons." Sky murmured to her.

Winter scowled at the comment. "No of course not." He sounded disgusted at the concept "That's not- Nothing's wrong with me at all." He paused for a moment, and Wren and Sky waited for him. The three of them were used to having pauses in their conversations, Wren and Sky because of their weird language mix ups and Winter because... well, he was Winter, that was just a Winter thing, she guessed.

He finally spoke up, "Just remembering a bombing that happened here." He murmured.

Sky blinked at him. "A bomb-ing?" He sounded out the word.

Wren didn't know that dragon word either, and Winter seemed to perk up at the opportunity to explain it. His shoulders and wings relaxed as if the familiar practice put him at ease. His explanation didn't put Wren at ease at all, though. A bombing? Here? At a school? Oh! Poor little baby dragons.

Winter's voice cracked at the end of his explanation. Wren knew her and Sky must have had bad expressions on their faces because Winter took one look at both of them and quickly averted his gaze.

"Don't worry about it." The IceWing muttered. "The school is safe now, that happened when I was five. So like, 25 years ago."

It occured to Wren, not for the first time, that despite Winter's larger size, he was a few years younger than Sky. When her dragon had been a baby Winter had been an even babier dragon.

Despite the horror of a bombing on baby dragons, Wren couldn't help but find Winter a little bit annoying as he ducked out of the cave. He was quiet and acted aloof most of the time when they weren't talking about scavenger business, but sometimes he would just drop things like "Oh, I fought in the war when I was three," or "My parents decided to kill me when I was five," and then he would do this very annoying thing where he would leave or change the subject before Wren or Sky could say something sympathetic to him.

See? Sky Was about to say something that would no doubt be very sweet and well intentioned, when Winter abruptly said, "I'm going to check on Freckle. Are you going to the prey center?" And Sky was forced to answer instead of saying the surely thoughtful and kind thing he was going to say.

And then Winter was leaving and Sky was watching him go with a new expression, a little wistful, but about twice as moony.

"I really don't get what you see in that awkward bundle of scales. " Wren huffed as soon as Winter disappeared from view.

Sky frowned at her. "He's not awkward" He argued, "He- he's so- he's really cool."

Wren frowned back at him. Maybe this would just be one of these things that Wren would never get completely, like her dragon's obsession with snails or inability to find steak as mouthwateringly delicious as she did.

"Is he, like, really handsome by dragon standards?" She guessed.

"What? Um-No-I mean maybe? Yes. Well actually I really wouldn't know uh dragon standards exactly but. uh." He sighed. "He's-he's really very sparkly, isn't he? And his shoulders are- they're really broad, aren't they? And his wings could, like, hold-"

"Ick! Stop!" Wren shoved him before he could say anymore goopy things about their standoffish housemate's looks. "Forget I asked."

She changed the subject to discussing the questions the dragonets had asked and by the time they got to the main entrance they had ended up discussing what they were going to do for dinner that night.

When Winter joined them again, Sky and Wren had settled into a sitting position at the mouth of the entrance cave.

Sky shot him another goofy smile as soon as he caught sight of the ice dragon, but Winter was frowning, looking past Sky at the ongoing downpour beyond the cave walls.

"That'll be ugly to fly through," He muttered, seeming to be bracing himself to fly out into the storm.

Wren prepared for Sky to do the same, pulling her leather hood over her head.

Except, Sky didn't scramble to his feet after all. Instead he said "Wait, I had an idea, actually."

Winter turned to look at him.

"Uh." Sky stumbled a bit when the IceWing met his eyes, "I just thought that since, uh, we don't really have to be home right away we could maybe sit here and watch the storm until its done? I mean, that way we could, uh, walk part of the way down the mountain and maybe, uh, see all the snails that come up on the rocks."

Winter tilted his head at him and Sky quickly said, "I mean, just, if that sounds okay to you. We don't have to if you don't want to."

Winter shook his head hurriedly, "No, that sounds nice to me." And... he didn't exactly smile, but the droop in his wings seemed to disappear and that little light showed up in his eyes.

Wren was about to protest that the storm could go on until night, and she didn't want to sleep in a cave, but Winter came over and sat next to Sky. The white dragon seemed to hesitate for a moment, before leaning in so that Sky's back was covered by his wing.

Sky nervously twined his tail around Winter's, giving him another big, dopey smile.

And Wren... well, who was she to argue with that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO SEEMS TO SHIP SKY AND WINTER. I know every other gay guy in the fandom is still hung up on Qinter, but just... think about the dynamic... dragon who cant hide his expressions and loves so openly and wonders at all sorts of pretty things and thinks that dragons who seem gruff must have something better in them somewhere... with pretty sparkly dragon who grew up emotionally stunted longing for approval from parents who didn't love him and is gruff but has a very brave and loyal heart that his friends admire in him... Also, mutual love for scavengers? They would be a beautiful old married couple.... Living in Sanctuary together and working out their emotions and communication issues together...  
> Anyway thanks for reading my Skinter manifesto. Yes I know that's a dumb name but I think they're cute okay? If you're on board and think of something better, leave a comment! I don't have a lot of WoF friends.


	3. Figuring Things Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frostbite apologizes to her clawmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a drink everytime i wrote the word "figured"

Freckle was the kind of dragonet that always assumed she was smarter than most other dragons. Not in any sort of mean, braggy way where she thought she knew everything about everything; she just spent a lot of time figuring things out about other dragons that she was pretty sure they didn't know about themselves.

Take her mom, Moonwatcher, for instance. She was a lovely mother, but she had this deep crease in her brow and she worried far too much. Freckle knew that it was probably because her mom had this special mind reading and future telling power stuff, which Freckle figured meant she basically knew about everyone's problems all the time. So if mom seemed kind of spacey or worried for no reason, that was definitely why. If her mom wanted to be happier, Freckle was pretty sure she could just wear her sky fire more often.

See, like that. A lot of dragons seemed to have problems with answers that just seemed so obvious to Freckle.

Like her dad, Qibli, always got _super_ cagey when she asked about extended family besides grandma Secretkeeper, which Freckle was pretty sure meant he had a bad relationship with his parents. Freckle thought that was kind of silly because in all the scrolls she'd read dragonets who fought with their parents were just being ridiculous and not understanding how deeply their family really loved them, so Qibli should just go sort it out like dragons in scrolls always did.

... She didn't tell them any of that, though, because she knew that she wasn't a dumb scroll dragonet who argued with parents who loved her for no good reason.

One dragon she did figure she could help, though, was her uncle Winter.

When she saw him talking to dragons like shop keepers and teachers he was always kinda standoffish and quiet, sometimes getting a little snappy with them.

But whenever it was just him and her family, he got these big smiles and his personality totally changed into this nice, funny uncle. The explanation for that, Freckle figured, was that Uncle Winter loved her and her parents very much and got lonely and grumpy without them around. So Freckle could help him not be lonely by visiting him lots and coming to see him when he gave his big scavenger talks at school.

She told her clawmate, Frostbite, about him once, but for some reason she hadn't believed that an IceWing could be Freckle's uncle. So Freckle figured she'd catch two birds with one bite by bringing the little IceWing along with her to see her uncle. But then Frostbite was really awful and mean for _no reason_ and talking to her just made Uncle Winter look even MORE lonely.

That was why Freckle had spent the whole day hanging out with the older dragonets in Firefly's winglet instead of with her SUPER RUDE clawmate.

She tried to avoid Frostbite in class too, but at the end of the day they shared the same sleeping cave.

Freckle buried herself in the little sandbox that served as her sleeping spot and pretended to already be asleep when her clawmate came in through the cave entrance.

The little white dragon regarded her sadly before going over to sit on her own stone ledge on the other side of the room.

Freckle had thought she had gotten away with it, but then she heard Frostbite's voice from across the room.

"Freckle?" She whispered. "Are you awake?"

Freckle didn't respond, doubling down on pretending to be asleep.

"Um... I just... I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Freckle's heart twinged a little bit at the sincerity in Frostbite's soft tone. But there was still fire in another part of her brain. _She doesn't really mean that,_ this part of Freckle roared, _She's just sorry I don't want to hang out with a dragon who says mean things like her._

"I... Freckle, if you're not asleep, you can't... please don't tell anyone what I'm about to say because... I could lose my ranking, you know... Mother already isn't happy with me being in third circle... but I... I don't like that rule either. The one about hybrids. Be... because I... I think that you are very wonderful and I'm very glad you exist and that I got to meet you and I want to be friends again even though I know my mother wouldn't like that..."

Freckle remembered learning about the royal IceWing rankings in the inter-tribal studies class. She remembered Frostbite admitting to being in third circle very softly. Freckle hadn't really known what that meant at the time, but the way Frostbite talked about it made it out like her mom's love hinged on that circle stuff. She felt a pang of unexpected sympathy for her clawmate as Freckle realized she hadn't stopped to try and figure out what Frostbite's problems were.

The little dragonet sighed, and Freckle raised her head to see that her clawmate had slumped down on her sleeping ledge in a very sad looking way.

"I won't tell." Frostbite nearly jumped out of her scales as Freckle spoke up unexpectedly.

Her head whipped around to look at Freckle, and several unreadable emotions seemed to flit across her face. Then she relaxed, and she was looking Freckle in the eye, and she looked very, very happy. "Oh, good." She breathed. "Freckle I... I like you a lot. I- I like you in a way that makes me want to break all the rules."

Freckle gave her a toothy grin. "Breaking all the rules sounds good to me." She said.

Frostbite shook her head a little, whispering quietly, "It's very, very scary to me."

Freckle felt as if here, under the cover of darkness, she was meeting her clawmate for the first time. She had always assumed that Frostbite's general quiteness, the short responses to her questions, and the lack of reaction to her friendly jokes had come out of some sort of sense of IceWing superiority. All this time she had kept her clawmate at wing's length, teasing about her funny little mannerisms, talking with her between classes, and coming up with silly little things to argue about just to summon any small amount of firceness in her, but never really getting to know her.

But that interpretation seemed wrong, now. Freckle saw this small, sparkly Icewing princess in a new light. This dragonet who wanted to be friends with Freckle so badly, and was so, so afraid of getting it wrong... This was someone who Freckle could be friends with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao I'm self conscious about having oc's but figured there was no harm in something short and sweet  
> I might write some more stuff about sky and winter so let me know if that's interesting i guess.


	4. Oh!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moonwatcher does NOT make a fool of herself at a party, thank you very much!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont hate me heterophobes im with you i promise  
> (im sorry to people who don't like qibli/moon, I just decided to decide on the couples in this future au from what Tui seemed to be leaning towards in cannon to avoid making extra work for myself. Winter/sky is the main exception to this because i think they should be in gay love with each other even though they havent technically met yet actually. this is the kind of homosexual i am, take me or leave me.)

Moon sat still in the rain. Droplets fell all around her in a continuous stream, a few just barely catching on the tips of her ears before sliding away into the sound of just another pitter among the patter of the water hitting the earthy rainforest floor. The rainforest was always just a bit cooler in the rain, but Moon felt something warm brush against her wing.

"Hey, you alright?" Qibli asked, close to her ear.

When Moon opened her eyes again the sights and sounds of the party came back to her. Every rain droplet had a face to it again, a voice that blended into the cheerful atmosphere of the cave in which diplomats of every scale color from every corner of Pyrrhia and Pantala had gathered.

"Fine." She said, leaning into the quiet, calm buzz that the sky fire made of Qibli's mind as well as his warm scales. "Just... Visualizing the raindrops... You know how it is."

Qibli nodded, drawing in closer. "We could go back outside if you need-"

"No, no. "Moon shook her head. "I'm doing alright. Besides, we told Winter we'd meet him right here. We don't want to miss him."

"Well, yes... But just for the record if you're not doing alright I care more about that than the plight Winter would be in if he had to stand here awkwardly in the middle of a party."

Moon was warmed by Qibli's concern, and was formulating something reassuring to say in response, when someone behind them spoke.

"Wow. Do all your romantic milestones have to be made at my expense?" Said the cold voice of the very dragon they were just speaking of.

Winter's tone was sharp, but when Moon turned to look at him it was with a smile. She had known her friend long enough to be able to tell from just his voice when he was teasing.

Of course, Qibli picked up on it too. He'd always known Winter better. "I'm afraid so." He said gravely. "Our entire relationship, the marriage, the dragonet, everything revolves around making you feel excluded at social functions."

"Oh, yes." Moon tried to match Qibli's faux seriousness, but thought she didn't quite accomplish it, a smile still audible in her voice. "Every moment you're away, we're plotting our next move. I can't believe it's taken you this long to notice."

Qibli nodded solemnly. "It was in our wedding vows."

Winter exhaled in a way that was probably a snort of amusement for him. Moon herself felt like giggling a bit. Seeing friends from her old winglet always made her feel a bit younger. Like she was back in school again. Although, perhaps that wasn't quite accurate. She definitely felt much less like a complete disaster nowadays than she had felt like as a dragonet.

"Wow, some friends you got." An unfamiliar voice nearly sent Moon out of her scales. She realized that an entire dragon was standing next to Winter and somehow she hadn't noticed him. Probably due to her little rain drop trick... Ok maybe she was still a little teensy weensy bit of a disaster... But that was between her and her scales, alright?

It turned out the dragon wasn't the one who had talked anyway. The scavenger sitting on his shoulder looked at Qibli as she said in Dragon, "You know he was talking you guys up the whole way here, and this is how you treat him?" Moon couldn't help but feel the little sparks of humor coming off the scavenger's mind, along with a certain undercurrent of... Wariness?

"Awwwww," Qibli crooned. "Winter loooves us!" He lifted his wing as if to wrap Winter into a hug.

"Lies. Lies and slander." Winter ducked away from the SandWing, hiding the smile that was pulling at the edge of his mouth. "Weren't we just talking about the clear, underlying resentment we all have for each other? Let's go back to that."

"Ah, yes." Qibli made a considering expression. "A much more acceptable IceWing emotion, don't you think?"

"Ha. Quite." Winter replied in a tone imitating haughtiness, standing up a little straighter.

Moon knew that the two of them could go on all night making fun of IceWing traditions, but as nice as that sounded, it seemed a little rude considering they had company.

"You must be Wren!" She addressed the scavenger. "I'm Moon, and that's my husband, Qibli."

"Hi there!" Qibli greeted them with a charming smile. 

Even though he was wearing his skyfire, Moon knew Qibli's lovely mind well enough to guess what he was thinking right now. She could practically see the calculations running through his head,  _ They must be pretty fond of Winter. Did being friendly with him make them like me too? Can a scavenger be charmed by a dragon smile or does it just look like we're baring our teeth? _

That last question didn't seem to be much of a concern, though, as the scavenger returned the gesture with her own expression, which looked an awful lot like a dragon smile to Moon.

Moon turned to the pale orange dragon and was about to guess his name from Winter's letters, but he introduced himself before she could.

"Hi! I'm Sky!" He blurted very quickly. "It's great to meet you!"

He then did this peculiar thing where he stuck his arm all the way out in front of him, as if offering her something in his talons... But his talons were empty.

Moon blinked at him in confusion.

Winter coughed, grabbing her attention. He nodded toward Sky's outstretched talons. "You're supposed to hold his talons and shake them up and down with yours. Shaking talons- or, paws, I suppose- is a common scavenger greeting." He informed them in his "I'm rather pleased that I know lots about scavengers" voice.

Sky balked at this, seeming rather alarmed. "Oh- I'm sorry, do dragons not- Should I-"

"No! It's fine! I can-" Moon was also feeling rather alarmed. She and Qibli were the ones that insisted Winter should bring representatives of Sanctuary to the peace committee benefit and only a few seconds into meeting them she had apparently already made some sort of culturally insensitive social faux pas. She went ahead and grabbed for Sky's outstretched talons, too caught up in perceived societal convention to remember the reason she didn't touch strange dragons without skyfire.

As soon as her scales met his, the neat droplet she had made of this dragon burst open.

Sky's mind hit hers in a rush of odd squeakiness. Incomprehensible words and all too familiar emotions. There was some dragon here and there...  _ Three moons- -bad at this- -why would I- -seal brain _ all internal comments seeming to relate to the awkwardness of this meeting. But then, striking out past it all, came the thought,  _ Please, don't think I'm weird. I don't want Winter's friends to think I'm weird. _

Moon was a little dazed. It was hard to separate the anxious thoughts from her own when she too had been feeling the awkwardness of this interaction. Except... No, this dragon's feelings about this meeting were a little more intense than hers... Something to do with Winter? Yeah. He really cared about what Winter thought of him. Was Winter like... His boss or something? Oh, wait, Winter might've mentioned this dragon was taking temporary lodging at his house in his letters. Did Sky think Winter was going to kick him out if he made a bad impression or something? Maybe she should-

"We don't usually do it that long." Wren commented aloud.

Moon realized that she was still shaking Sky's talons. And had been doing so for an apparently unreasonable amount of time.

_ Argh! What am I doing? _

Moon pulled her talons away quickly, trying to shove Sky's brain back into a raindrop. Except raindrops don't really form via shove. She had to take a breath and imagine the clouds forming and the slow drip dropping and that was all very hard to do when she was painfully aware of the awkward silence she would be creating by doing so.

Suddenly, Qibli was by her side. "Hey, that's pretty cool!" He told Sky. "You mind if I try?"

He outstretched his talons, and Sky took them with his own, shaking up and down in the gesture.

"Haha, that's so interesting! Feels kind of weird, doesn’t it?" Qibli remarked, most likely to give Moon a pass for reacting so strangely. "You know, I can see why scavengers would come up with a greeting like this. You guys don't have natural claws, so I bet putting down your little claw-weapons is sort of a sign of peace! But you know, if dragons just went around pointing their claws at strange dragons that would seem kind of like a threat, right?"

Wren, who Qibli seemed to be addressing, nodded thoughtfully, and Winter squinted his eyes consideringly. Sky, on the other talon, looked horrified. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" He said to Moon. "I really didn't mean to threaten anybody, honest."

Thanks to Qibli taking the pressure off of her, Moon had gotten herself sorted out enough from her just-read-someone's-mind funk to respond kindly. "Oh, I didn't think you did!" She reassured. "Qibli's just speculating on some sort of reason for the cultural difference. We study things like that. Inter-tribal differences, specifically. There are similar sorts of things, like... Like SandWings tend to twine tails less as a display of casual affection than the other tribes because of their tail barbs. That stuff is interesting to us! So it's really no harm done."

Oh she was rambling a bit. Well, maybe that was just the kind of dragon she was. She was in good company, though. Sometimes when it was just her, Qibli, and Winter they would have conversations that were less dialogue and more each dragon taking turns giving a sort of rambling speech about everything they had learned about a specific topic that week. There was a word for what they were. Nerds, all of them.

Ramble or not, Sky didn't seem to take much comfort in her words. He still had a rather worried air about him.

Winter nudged the smaller orange dragon in the shoulder. "You're fine." He told him, gruffly.

To Moon's surprise, Sky's cloud of worry disappeared and he seemed to perk up a bit. Which was strange, because Winter did not usually have that effect on other dragons. Also, Winter didn't usually touch other dragons. At least, Moon had only ever seen him bump shoulders with his long time friends from the Jade winglet. Which made Moon rethink what she had been speculating about Sky's wanting to impress him... Had Winter's letters ever mentioned the dragon-scavenger pair outside of a work context?

"You know who would love this shaking-talons thing?" Qibli moved the conversation along. "King Smolder. He overheard me mentioning you in my recent consultation with Queen Thorn, and he's been dying to meet you. I promised him I'd try and introduce you if you're up for it."

Wren's tiny eyes widened. " _ That _ guy is king now?" She asked. "How'd that happen?"

Moon blinked. "You know him?"

Sky looked away sort of awkwardly towards Winter, and Wren waved one of her little paws dismissively. "Yeah, sorta. Friend of a friend."

Qibli's nose wrinkled, seemingly amused by this. "You know, I'm not sure myself!" He answered Wren's question. "I'm still pretty certain Thorn could do better."

Moon rolled her eyes "Oh please." She said teasingly, "No dragon in the world could ever be good enough for  _ your  _ queen."

"Exactly." Qibli nodded, jokingly ignoring her sarcasm. "I'm glad we're in agreement on that front."

Moon giggled, whapping him with her tail. "Well, don't tell him that while we're hobnobbing with him."

Qibli shrugged. "Hey, if Queen Thorn disagrees with us about him not being good enough for her, then we must be wrong. Because obviously Queen Thorn is always right."

"I'd like to meet her." Wren interjected. "She's the first SandWing queen since the big war, right?"

"Yes, she is!" Qibli declared. He beckoned the group with his tail, angling himself to walk towards a direction in the crowd where he had no doubt been keeping track of the queen and her royal consort the entire time, going on with his introductory speech about Queen Thorn's good points that Moon practically had memorized by now, given how many times Qibli had repeated it over the years.

Wren nudged Sky to follow Qibli as he walked through the crowd. The orange dragon acquiesced, but as they made their way across the room Sky let Moon pass him and fell into step with Winter again.

"Hob-nob-ing?" She heard him sound out softly to her friend.

Winter started whispering something in his ear. A translation, she assumed, for the slangish term she had used in their conversation.

_ Oh, I should remember to be considerate of that. _ She fretted internally. Moon really wanted the anti scavenger consumption acts to gain traction in tribal legislation. She felt that if dragons had the knowledge of the depth of scavengers' sentience they would come to the same conclusion she had when her mind reading abilities had thrust such knowledge upon her the first time she met a scavenger in the Jade mountain academy prey hall all those years ago.

_ Hah. _ Moon thought to herself.  _ That's a good reminder that first impressions don't make or break a relationship. _ Certainly her first time meeting Winter had been far more disastrous than this little talon-shaking mishap, and they had ended up being lifetime friends.

Sky’s introduction to King Smolder went far better. The older dragon had been delighted by the claw shaking, and had loved speaking with Wren, even if he was a bit patronizing. Moon could feel that the scavenger had been a bit annoyed by him. Queen Thorn was a good deal more respectful. She treated Wren less like a novelty and more like a subject coming to her with a new perspective on an issue she hadn’t thought of before.

“I can see why all you Sand dragons seem to like her so much.” Wren told Qibli after the royal pair had moved on. 

Qibli puffed out his chest, and looked about to say something, but Winter cut in. 

“What, you mean he’s not the only one?” He teased.

Qibli screwed up his face at him. “Well, you can’t say I’m exactly wrong when I say she’s the best queen in all of Pyrrhia, can you? Who are you going to counter me with? Queen Snowfall?”

“... Well, I think Queen Glory does a pretty good job.” Moon put in.

Qibli made a sort of, “Oh no, I’ve been betrayed!” face at her that she was pretty sure wasn’t entirely heartfelt.

Winter nodded along with a smirk. “She does look after two tribes, doesn’t she? That puts her a step ahead of the other queens, I’d say.”

“Oh, yes, Queen Glory all the way.” Sky burst into the conversation just to agree with Winter, nodding vigorously.

“Ha!” Winter laughed! Which was. Surprising. Moon was surprised by this. It was very short, but a bit more than a snort. “How would you know? You haven’t even been to the rainforest!” He nudged Sky in the shoulder again.

“Oh, well, but you’re always saying that I would like it very much.” Sky insisted.

“But out of the queens you’ve met, Queen Thorn is definitely the best, isn’t she?” Qibli put in.

Moon held back from laughing at him. Queen Thorn was sort of like Qibli’s surrogate mother in some ways, and Moon had always thought it was very cute how distraught he got when other dragons couldn’t see how great she was.

_Well, if my mom were queen…_ _Hmmm._ That didn’t quite track. She loved Secretkeeper, there was no question about that… but that didn’t mean she thought her mother would make a very good queen. Moon knew that she wouldn’t have been quite half as nervous as she had been as a dragonet had she not listened to her mother’s own circular worrying thoughts regarding keeping her and her powers secret and safe. She couldn’t imagine her mother being a queen, it would simply stress her out far too much. She was an excellent grandmother, though, Freckle always loved it when they went to the rainforest to visit because Secretkeeper would simply dote on her.

Wren seemed displeased by the question Qibli had posed. “That makes our options between her and that creepy SandWing who wanted Sky in her weirdling tower. So, no contest.”

Qibli frowned at her. “You mean Burn? She was never really Queen.”

Wren did something with her shoulders that seemed to imitate a dragon shrug. “Called herself one.” She said.

Qibli seemed disturbed by this.

“Well, we’re all glad Queen Thorn is running the Sand Kingdom nowadays.” Moon brushed her wing against Qibli’s back, as if settling his scales. “No one could do that better than her.”

She turned her head towards Winter, sort of expecting a last rebuke from him on the matter. To her surprise, Winter didn’t seem to have anything to say. He had leaned in to put his wing against Sky’s, who Moon realized had sort of an air of gloom about him. Had something they were talking about upset him? 

_ Aaaagh, not again! _ She really needed to be more mindful of the effects of her words when she had other dragons in rain droplets. She wasn’t even sure at what point in their conversation the orange dragon had become upset!

Qibli seemed to notice as well, because despite probably having more praises to sing in Queen Thorn’s name, he changed the topic from Queens to some harmless inquiries about some of Winter’s recent progress in Sanctuary. They got into some pretty good discussion on the issue, until they somehow ended up cycling through different conversation topics involving their friends or how Freckle was doing at school. Moon could tell that as the night went on, a fairly good time was had by all, even if she sensed that Wren and Sky seemed to feel as if they were third winging now and then.

Eventually, Winter and Sky had to fly back in order to be in Sanctuary at a reasonable time. Moon and Qibli followed them out of the cave to say their goodbyes.

After the two of them had flown a good distance away, Moon turned to Qibli.

“So?” She asked. “What did you think of them?”

Moon always loved to ask Qibli what he thought of the new dragons they met. He always seemed to pick out things that she couldn’t, and it was fun to get a glimpse into that lovely mind of his, even when he had his skyfire on.

Qibli squinted. "I’ve been thinking about this all night but I can’t be sure…” He started out, not disappointing her in the slightest. “Did something about Sky’s face seem familiar to you? Make you think of someone else?"

Moon blinked. "Uh, no not really." She actually had sort of a hard time with faces... Growing up it had been much easier to remember the way other dragons' minds felt than what their faces looked like, and she still had trouble remembering to take note of them now, even after more and more of the dragons she knew began to wear skyfire. "Why, did you think he looks like someone we know?"

Qibli shrugged. "I mean. I can't really be sure... The scale color is all wrong... and he's a lot smaller... And I know not all SkyWings look alike... but doesn't he... doesn't he kind of remind you of Peril?"

Moon was surprised to realize that, yes this dragon did sort of remind her of Peril. Her mind, at least. The way he had thought about Winter... That, "Oh, does he still like me? I hope he still likes me..." sort of emotion was definitely familiar from back before Peril and Clay got together...

Moon gasped. "Do you think he has a crush on Winter?!" She exclaimed.

"I- what?" Qibli looked at her with a quizzical expression. "Uh. No, I- Wait, does he?"

"Oh." Moon felt a little embarrassed. "Well. I mean. I'm just speculating. If that's not what you were implying..."

"Well, hold on a second." Qibli suddenly seemed to be thinking very hard about this. "Didn't Winter say he was living with this dragon? Are they dating? Did Winter start dating someone and not tell us? Well I guess it's not entirely our business, is it? And maybe Winter isn't sure if things will work out and doesn't want to tell us. Except, Winter isn't that good at keeping secrets, and he doesn't like to anyway. So how long would- But if they moved in together, then- Does Winter really move that fast?"

"Um." Moon shrugged. "I don't know about all that. I just mean that... Well, I just think this dragon is very fond of Winter, is all."

"Well, yes, that's good." Qibli said. "Winter needs more dragons in his life who are fond of him, what with how rare a turn of events that is."

"Right." Moon agreed, glad that Qibli's mind had switched from its fretting mode to its making fun of Winter mode.

"... But what if it's not a good thing?" Oh. Never mind. "Winter's the happiest he's ever been in his life, focusing on his work at that scavenger sanctuary, what if he gets his heart broken again? What do we even know about this dragon? Oh, I just wrote him off as a sort of awkward, harmless guy who Winter was taking pity on. I should've paid closer attention! Do you think we have time to-"

"Shhhushh." Moon nudged her silly wingbeat brain in the side. "Winter's a big dragon now, he can take care of himself.” She decided to tease him a little bit. “And besides, who are you to be trying to give other dragons romantic advice?”

Qibli made a face at her. “Well, I’d like to think my own romance life is going pretty well, if you don’t disagree.”

Moon laughed at him. “When I confessed to you, you told me that I should be in love with Winter instead!”

Qibli shook his head, “I’m never going to be able to live that down, am I?”

“Nope!” Moon giggled some more, leaning in to give Qibli another playful nudge. But when she did, the brush of his warm scales reminded her how cold it was out here on the cliff side, and she ended up just sort of leaning into the warmth of his scales, sighing with contentment.

Qibli leaned into her as well, wrapping his wing over her and laying his neck over hers in order to envelop her in the heat from his scales.

“...You know…” He muttered quietly near her ear. “... I’m pretty glad you didn’t take my advice…”

“...Yeah.” She said softly in response. “... I am too.”

The two of them sat there until the sun rose, leaning into each other and watching the stars… 

So, yeah, Moon decided it was a pretty good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think about moon's trauma a lot because before I came out as a gay guy in middle school i related to all characters who had like BIG SECRETs to keep. all of the wof characters actually i think about their trauma because theres a lot of like. emotional repression, sad face.


	5. Banana Fishing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter and Sky visit Kinkajou and Turtle in the Rainforest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that I've been sitting on this one for a while. I think the new book is coming out soonish so all of this stuff is going to be like uncannonized haha. I decided to finish off some of the chapters I just had sitting around, so sorry if they're not super polished.

Kinkajou woke up that warm rainforest morning with the sun on her back.

 _Hmmmmmm..._ was her first thought… _Sun… nice… sleep… forever…_

And then she jolted up out of the hammock in her hut.

 _Gah!_ She thought, looking around the room for her things. _The sun is already that high up? Aaaaah, I’m sooo late! Why didn’t Turtle wake me?_

Unfortunately for Kinkajou, she was a teacher, which meant that the alarming feeling of being late for school was going to be something she had to live with for the rest of her life, well beyond her academy days.

Not that she didn’t love her job, of course. Heck, starting the RainWing Reading School had been a dream of hers ever since she had learned scrolls were a thing! But running a school as her assignment didn’t exactly leave room for many days… off…

Kinkajou had gotten half way through gathering her course materials before she remembered that she wasn’t working today.

 _Oh… yeah…_

Kinkajou regained her bearings, recalling the nice little graduation they had had for their most recent batch of students just a few days ago. 

The RainWing Reading School (or RRS for short) didn’t really operate like schools in most other parts of Pyrrhia. RainWings had never needed schools, because young dragons were always taught their assignments via community learning and apprenticeships, so even though they called the RRS a school, it was more like a library that had community lessons in different courses that dragons could sign up for. 

They had a couple adult classes for RainWings who had never learned to read, a few clubs on different sorts of scrolls for RainWings and NightWings that knew how to read and loved it, and some classes for very, very young dragonets who wanted to learn to read before being sent to attend Jade Mountain Academy or one of the other inter-tribal schools nearby. 

Kinkajou and Turtle ran the school and maintained the library mostly by themselves, with support from Queen Glory, of course, and they were pretty great at it, but it didn’t leave Kinkajou with a lot of mornings to herself.

Right now, though, they were in a period of being in between courses, where they were waiting for dragons to sign up for the options they had available, so they could determine which courses they were going to keep or drop this term and how they would be scheduled. In previous years they had scheduled a lot more adult classes, but knowing how to read was becoming the new normal in the Rainforest kingdom, thanks in no small part to Kinkajou herself, and in recent years there had been terms where they hadn’t had adult classes at all and had replaced them with scroll clubs.

Kinkajou debated going back to her hammock, but she eventually decided that she could get her z’s in at sun time if she really wanted to. And, besides, she had just remembered that they were expecting some of her friends to visit today.

So Kinkajou headed outside, deciding to track down where Turtle had gone off to. He hadn’t been in that little nook they had in their hut where he liked to scrunch up in to write, so she assumed her boyfriend was out by the river, and made her way stroll her way over there, planning to settle on the shore and look about for him.

Her and Turtle had been living together here and running the school for something like going on seven years now. Despite this, they still just called themselves boyfriend and girlfriend. There were plenty of reasons for that of course. One of which being that RainWings didn't really _do_ marriages.

Well, certainly some of her friends had had ceremonies. When her _best_ friend Queen Glory got one done it was so beautiful that marriage ceremonies sort of became a trend in the rainforest for a bit. But the Rainforest kingdom didn't really have laws about unions and the distribution of wealth or tax benefits like the Sea kingdom or required partnerings like the Sky kingdom used to before Queen Ruby came to power.

And then there was the whole matter that Turtle was still a SeaWing prince. 

Honestly, having a prince from another land fall in love with you seemed like conceptually a very sparkly romantic adventure, but scrolls that go like that never tell you that princes can be huge scrollworms with weird senses of humor and deeply heroic hearts who just so happened to have a crazy uptight and overdramatic family.

If they _did_ get married they'd have to go through the whole entire SeaWing way of doing it, which Kinkajou heard from her friend Tamarin was a _bit_ of a complete and total nightmare when you're a RainWing trying to marry into royalty. Not that her and Anemone's ceremony wasn't absolutely gorgeous, but as Tamarin's right claw through it all Kinkajou had been more than a little privy to how stressful all the prep work going into it had been for her friend, and her own job had involved a lot more responsibilities than it had when she was the right claw at her other best friend Moon’s wedding.

Also, if her and Turtle wanted to get married there'd have to be a lot of talking with Turtle's mother, Coral. The retired SeaWing Queen had managed to have about 32 sons in her lifetime, but somehow only one of them had ended up inheriting her love of writing and Kinkajou was a little tired of the sour looks she got whenever they visited Turtle's family for being the villainous RainWing who had swept up the old SeaWing's favorite son to live with her in a little hut in the Rainforest.

Kinkajou didn't really mind, though. When she was younger she was certain that she would've gone bananas about having a whole party just for her and a special someone. She had often fantasized about having a romance that was daring, dangerous, and exciting! 

… But after all the times the RainWing had rushed into adventures that had saved the world, it was surprising how slow and steady her partnership with Turtle had progressed, and somehow they had come across a life together that Kinkajou wouldn't trade for a world of adventures.

This lovey dovey thought was just floating through Kinkajou's mind as she lay down, basking in the sun on the river shore, when her banana slug of a boyfriend _completely_ betrayed her romantic opinion of him by popping his head out of the water and squirting some of the river in her direction.

"Augh!" She squawked, ducking out of the way.

"Sorry." Turtle said with a grin that told her he was totally not sorry at ALL.

Kinkajou scooped up some water in her talon, splashing it at his head. He tried to duck away as she had, but he wasn't quite fast enough. "Hah!" She exclaimed. "There. Water fight over. Winner: me, obviously."

Turtle laughed, shaking himself a bit as he got up from the riverbed. "Well, if you think about it, I was already wet, but you had to get _your_ claws wet to splash me, so technically the one who got water on the other was-"

"Uh-uh." Kinkajou shook her head resolutely. "You're not talking your way out of this one, Mr. Clever-scales. You missed, I didn't, so I won. Plain and simple."

Turtle shrugged. "Fair enough," he said, settling onto the shore next to her. He didn't make any attempt to dry off. The Rainforest was always just a smidgen warmer in the day time than Turtle was used to, so he liked to use the water of the river to keep cool. That was why they had picked a spot so close to it to build their hut, even though it was a bit out of the way of the RainWing and NightWing villages.

Now that he was above water, Kinkajou noticed that Turtle had his little water proof pouch on, the one he kept his instant letter tablet in. It was an object that Turtle himself had touched, and surprisingly it was something he had come up with on his own. Most of his more creative projects were indulgences of Moon or Qibli's inventive ideas, or some whim of Peril or Kinkajou's, but the instant letter tablets were an improvement on a special notepad Turtle had touched as a dragonet to write notes to himself. Turtle had given one of them to each of his friends after they graduated the academy so that they could keep in touch no matter where they all ended up.

"Did they say when they were coming?" Kinkajou asked, referring to the message their expected visitors had sent last night.

"No." Turtle shook his head. "Apparently this whole thing is sort of last minute. They're dropping their scavenger friend off at the Indestructible City on some business she has before they head over here. So, who knows how long that will take."

"Right, right." Kinkajou sighed. She had read the part of the message from Winter about taking the opportunity to introduce them to his scavenger-speaking friend. "Ugh, I would've loved to meet her too!" A scavenger who could speak dragon! That was so impressive.

"Well, yes, but you know what Winter said about the carnivorous animals here and poisonous fauna being more dangerous for scavenger physiology, not to mention King Deathbringer's whole thing." Turtle waved his talon vaguely.

"Yeah yeah." Kinkajou turned her scales varying shades of black, imitating the scale pattern of the King. "Those scavengers can have whatever kind of rights they want, just keep them far away from m-m-meee!" She said the last part in a sort of mocking tone.

Turtle laughed. "Hey, that's your king you're talking about!" He chided in a non-serious way.

"Please," Kinkajou flicked her tail. "I was friends with Queen Glory before he was, and you know she's never been one to put down making fun of him!"

"Ha, I guess that's true." Turtle chuckled, stretching forward to put his toes in the water.

"Besides," Kinkajou nudged him in the shoulder. "Since when have _I_ ever had to respect royal titles." She teased suggestively.

Turtle barked out another laugh, "Ha! Whatever could you mean by that?"

"Oh, you know…" Kinkajou leaned in as if about to do something very romantic, but when Turtle turned to look at her, she splashed a talonful of river water on his face.

Turtle squawked, rolling away from her and diving into the river again, as if that would somehow make him safer from getting wet.

When he re-emerged, she had backed up as to be out of splashing distance. 

"No fair!" He exclaimed. "You said the water fight was over!"

"Well, the fight was over." Kinkajou said. "What with me totally destroying you and all. Now I'm just bullying you."

Turtle made a sort of sour green-blue expression, like he was going to bellyache some more, but then something seemed to catch his eye in the water and he froze.

Before Kinkajou could ask what it was, Turtle plunged one of his talons in the water, making a big splash.

Some of the spray managed to get on the tip of Kinkajou's nose, but she figured if she didn't react, he wouldn't notice and she could still claim her scales were perfectly dry.

"Ah, whale guts." Turtle muttered. "A fruit fish just went right between my claws."

“Oh, hmm.” Kinkajou thought about her own stomach for a second. Sitting here in the sun had been pretty filling for her, but it wouldn’t hurt to grab a banana a bit later. “Have you had breakfast yet?” She asked Turtle, knowing that his scales didn’t do what recent RainWing scholarship was calling ‘Photosynthesis,’ like hers.

“Yeah.” Turtle admitted. “But I figured I could get something for when Winter got here. They’ll have been flying for a while.”

“Oh, you’re right.” Kinkajou nodded. “But! We should get some fruit instead, Sky’s a vegetarian.”

Turtle blinked at her. “Really? How do you know that?”

Kinkajou waved her talons. “Oh, Winter talks about him in his letters all the time.”

“Huh. Not that I noticed.” Turtle said, now standing in the shallows of the river instead of being submerged in it. He seemed to be half making conversation, half looking for any fish he hadn’t scared away. “All I really know about him is that he speaks scavenger and they’ve been working together.”

Kinkajou snorted. “Well, that’s your own fault, then! How could you read that and not start interrogating Winter about his ‘very special friend.’”

“Very special?” Turtle asked. “How’d you get that impression?”

“Turtle! It’s Winter!” Kinkajou said in lieu of explanation. “Since when does he make friends? This is, like, his only friend he’s made since he was in school! What’s so special about this dragon? Wouldn’t you want to know?”

Turtle shrugged. “Uh. Well. I mean, he is a dragon who speaks scavenger, and Winter’s always been all about scavengers. So it makes sense. And I guess I just figured that it wasn’t any of my business?” He glanced back at her, and Kinkajou deliberately turned the ruff around her ears a shade of violent orange. “Oh, uh, not that I don’t think it’s any of _your_ business, obviously.” He clarified.

Kinkajou was about to reply something along the lines of “obviously,” when she heard a sudden rustling from the bushes on the opposite side of the bank, and a dragon voice that said, “Well, for the record, _I_ don’t think it entirely is.”

Kinkajou and Turtle turned their heads to look across the river just in time to spot the familiar, white dragon emerging from the Rainforest brush.

"Winter!" Kinkajou greeted her friend cheerily, hopping up and wading straight through the river to give him a big hug with her wings, forgetting her resolution to not get her scales wet in her haste.

Winter had been telling her about how he was trying to be more comfortable with casual gestures of physical affection in his letters, but he still stiffened a bit in surprise before reciprocating the affectionate greeting with a few taps of his own wings.

"Yes, yes, hello yourself, Kinkajou." He grumbled, disentangling from her quickly, but not unkindly.

Kinkajou let him, taking a step back to get a good look at him.

"Aah, you're so thin!" She fretted. Sometimes Kinkajou wondered if there was any food outside the Rainforest at all, with the state her friends were always visiting her in.

Winter got a huffy, orange pink sort of look on his face. "You know, you always say that, and somehow I'm always twice your size." 

He was exaggerating, but he was hitting on the nerve of the bone Kinkajou had to pick with whatever great dragon in the sky had decided that she would end up being the shortest of her friends in their adulthood. She sometimes tried to argue that she was taller than Turtle, at least, but she could only get away with that because he always held his neck in that SeaWing-slouch.

"Well, you're thin for _you._ " Kinkajou insisted anyway. “You know, Turtle was just saying he could catch you a fish, if you like-” And, oh! That reminded her. She turned to Sky, who was standing a little behind Winter, looking a bit startled. Taking in his appearance, he looked almost exactly like she expected him to, orange scales, an open sort of face, bright blue eyes… the only thing was that he was even thinner than Winter! But Kinkajou didn’t say that out loud, thinking it would seem a little rude from a dragon he’d just met. “We also have loads of fruit!” She said instead. “Do you like bananas, Sky?”

The pale orange dragon blinked at her, seeming surprised that she knew his name. His face lit up with a yellow-rose sort of happy grin as he processed her words. “Uh, yeah! I do! Actually.” He said in response.

“Oh, good!” Kinkajou smiled back at him, “My friend Mangrove brought us a whole bunch the other day, and I was just thinking ‘there’s no way I can eat these all by myself!’”

Turtle came up from the river to stand next to her as she chattered, looking mild-yellow amused. “Hi, Winter.” He said in a tone just a touch less excited than her own had been.

“Hey.” Winter replied, as Kinkajou began to usher him and Sky in the direction of their hut.

“I’m Turtle.” Her boyfriend nodded at Sky as they got ready to flap over the river. “Cool to meet you.”

“Oh, yes!” Kinkajou realized that she had forgotten to introduce herself. “And I’m Kinkajou! We’re Winter’s friends, by the way.”

“Uh, yeah!” Sky nodded. “He, uh, told me about you guys. I’m Sky, by the way.” His face screwed up. “Oh, but uh, you already knew that.”

Kinkajou nodded. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard so much about you. Winter talks about you all the time!”

Sky blinked, eyes darting between Winter and Kinkajou for a moment. “Uh. He. Does he?”

Winter didn’t say anything, but he gave Kinkajou a look that she would classify as pretty orange if he were a RainWing.

“Ah, I’ve been dying to meet you!” Kinkajou played it safe, neither confirming or denying his question for Winter’s sake. Even if she thought he was being a little silly about not showing affection for other dragons, she was the one who was always prompting Winter to discuss more than just scavenger business in his letters, and she didn’t want him to get so annoyed as to stop letting her in on all the latest gossip in Sanctuary. Well, it was never the latest, it was Winter, after all, but she didn’t want to push him too far nonetheless.

“Come on, come on.” She ushered Sky toward their hut. Winter moved to follow them, but a big splash from the river distracted him. Turtle had tried to catch another fish, seemingly unsuccessfully. Winter made a face that Kinkajou would’ve been certain was amused if it didn’t look so much like a scowl and headed back toward the river. Kinkajou and Sky stopped to watch as he took a position by Turtle, stooping over the water’s surface with a claw raised.

He plunged it in, pulling out a colorful looking fish.

Turtle whooped, and Winter raised his head a little, as if proud, before setting it aside on the shore and stooping over to look for another.

“Meat eaters, I’ll never get it.” Kinkajou shook her head. “So much effort for a little fish- It’s good to see a fruit eater from another tribe!”

“Uh, yeah!” Sky’s face was lit up with a big smile. “I’ve been wanting to meet you too- Uh, Winter really mentions you a lot.”

“Really?” Now that was curious. “What does he say?” Kinkajou asked.

“Uh. He’ll check his little tablet thing and say like,” Sky screwed up his face in a hilarious impression of Winter, “Oh, that’ll be Kinkajou again… what does she want now…” Sky blinked, shooting a glance at Winter and then back at Kinkajou. “Uh, but he says it in that way where you know actually he’s excited about it.”

YES. This dragon knew about Winter’s “I’m pretending to not be excited” voice. That was, like, at least a best friendship tier thing to know about him.

“You’re so good at that.” Kinkajou complimented his imitation of Winter. “You must spend a lot of time together…”

“Well, I-” Sky’s lip quirked awkwardly. Like he had just stopped himself from making another big smile. “I mean. Yeah! I guess we do.”

Hmm… Fascinating.

“What do you think of him? Is he a good… friend?” Kinkajou did some fishing of her own.

“Oh, uh. Yeah! For sure, I mean he’s just…” Sky trailed off as his gaze drifted toward Kinkajou’s ice dragon friend. “He’s the kind of friend who doesn’t let you down, you know?” His voice was a little soft. “The kind of dragon who you could believe in and always be right about believing in…”

Kinkajou thought the way Sky was looking at the back of Winter’s head was _very_ interesting.

Sky seemed to get a little lost in his thoughts as he went on.

“Like, before I met him I had sort of given up on being friends with other dragons like I was friends with scavengers.” He admitted. “All the dragons I had met before I had _wanted_ to think the best of, but they always managed to prove me wrong… but then I met Winter and he… Well, he isn’t that kind of dragon.”

“Oh, yes.” Kinkajou nodded. She could see how this dragon might get that interpretation from Winter’s general noble heroic-ness thing he had going on. “And he's very handsome, too, isn't he?” She prompted.

“Ah, um, uh,” Sky stuttered, whipping around to look at her with wide eyes as if the question had startled him. “Yes-” He answered, before cutting himself off and letting his eyes dart back to Winter. “Well, rather- uh- is he?” He asked in a quieter voice.

“Yeah he super is.” Kinkajou couldn’t see at all why this dragon would still be on the fence about that, but any chance she could take to push him in the right direction was one she was going to take. “Every dragon totally had a crush on him in school because of his looks, but he's the gallant one true love type so he didn't date around much.” She exaggerated, before getting around to some real tips. “He’s very shy, emotionally speaking. Not likely to make the first move.”

“Oh, uh, is that so?” Sky glanced over at Winter again and Kinkajou followed his gaze. 

Her ice dragon friend was not doing her description of him any favors in her opinion, looking a little sticky from the rainforest and his brow screwed up in concentration. Hopefully Sky would find that, like, cute or something, though.

Then Winter arched his neck a bit in a way that pronounced the crook of his shoulders and Kinkajou heard Sky gulp beside her.

Yes. Score. Good on Winter for being casually attractive in a way that let Kinkajou wingdragon him successfully.

Kinkajou didn’t get a chance to do much more, though, because Turtle managed to snag another big looking fruit fish, which sent him and Winter walking back up the river bank with their catches.

Kinkajou was still analyzing Sky’s expression, and noticed he got this squeamish look on his face when he saw the fish in their mouths.

“Hey Sky, look over here!” Kinkajou stretched out a wing and sympathetically redirected his gaze towards the direction of their hut. “You can see the roof of our home just over the trees!”

Sky blinked at the curious construction that could be seen over the trees. “Is that all made of treestuffs?” He asked.

“Mostly!” Kinkajou replied. “I mean, it is the rainforest, afterall. We do use sloth fur for certain types of fibers.”

“Oh.” Sky’s eyeridge creased slightly as if something had disappointed him. “I thought, uh. I thought that you guys didn’t hunt sloths for meat or fur…”

He cast a glance back at Winter, who was making an odd expression.

Kinkajou felt a little horrified at the implications of Sky’s question. “Oh, goodness- You think we would- Oh, obviously we don’t skin the sloths, that would be barbaric!”

Sky looked at her with wide eyes. “Really?” He asked.

“Of course!” Kinkajou felt a little indignant at the thought that anyone could even imagine killing a cute little sloth just for its pelt. “Sloths have fur that naturally picks up algae and other rainforest gunk, so RainWings that have them try to keep them clean and groomed by brushing their fur out. RainWings who do that end up with a lot of fur balls lying around, so they collect them and give them to dragons with the tribe’s weavers.”

Kinkajou remembered seeing the working claws of a weaver as a very young dragonet when she was daydreaming about what assignment she would have when she was older. Even though she hadn’t decided on being a reading teacher yet because she hadn’t even known reading was a thing, Kinkajou had known just from looking at those deft, seamless claw movements that she would never have what it took to be a weaver.

“I can show you some of the fur ribbons they make when we get back to the hut- have you really never seen them before?” Kinkajou supposed that she had never really seen weaving outside of the rainforest village.

“Well, no I don’t think so…” Sky squinted. “Although, that does sound similar to what humans do with…”

Sky trailed off, seeming to be a little lost. He turned to Winter and made a strange squeaking noise with his mouth that sounded a bit like a RainWing imitating a monkey call.

“Round, and fluffy, they keep them in pens.” He looked at Winter pleadingly.

“Sheep.” Winter told him in response, standing a little bit taller as if he had done some very good detective work.

“Sheep!” Sky exclaimed as if he had been looking for his claw only to find it still attached to his talon. “Sheep!” He turned back to Kinkajou with a very excited look on his face. “Scavengers do that with sheep wool! Is, uh, what I mean.”

“Woooah, what? That’s so cool…” Kinkajou pictured the clever little paws of a scavenger and figured to herself that they must be able to make much more delicate weavings than the claws of a dragon.

Winter made a face that involved him squinting a bit, but Kinkajou thought that he probably also thought that this was very cool because this was the kind of thing that Winter was obsessed with.

“You know, we were just talking about the building materials we use in Sanctuary the other day,” Winter confirmed Kinkajou’s suspicion by expressing his excitement through some nerdy work talk, “It’s actually been a bit of a challenge to find construction methods for homes that both scavengers and dragons can use because of the different scale and the necessities of the-”

Winter continued to talk about some of his Sanctuary business, but it was a bit of a walk to the hut, and by the time they got just in front of it somehow the conversation topic had switched to discussing unique features of rainforest birds.

Sky had been discussing how very big toucans’ beaks were, when something interrupted him.

"Wait!" Winter suddenly cried, abruptly dropping his fish and turning and sticking his head in a bush in the tangle of growth just outside the hut. "Come here! Look at this!" He exclaimed, using his face and neck to push some branches out of the way of something.

Kinkajou was a bit too stunned by her friend's odd behavior to comply, but Sky walked over and leaned in, sticking his face in the same bush.

And then the dragon squealed indecipherably.

Kinkajou realized that he was probably speaking in Scavenger as he went on, sticking his claw in the bush and pulling it out with a banana slug shuffling along one of his talons.

"Ah! It's little brown spots! Look how little!" He cooed in Dragon in between squeaks, an enormous, goofy smile on his face.

If Winter were a RainWing, Kinkajou would bet his scales would've been a dazzling prideful purple right now, considering how pleased with himself he looked. Even if he had pulled up some of the Rainforest, caught between his icicle spines as he had extracted his neck from the bush.

"Aww, that's so cute!" Kinkajou fawned. 

"Isn't it?" Sky asked, seeming to think she was talking about the banana slug.

Winter saw her looking at him though, and ducked his head with embarrassment, running a claw through his horns to brush out the sticks and leaves. He walked through the doorway of the hut a little hurriedly. 

The rest of them filed in after, and Kinkajou went over to grab the aforementioned bushel of bananas. She urged everyone to make themselves at home but the only one who seemed to take her advice right away was turtle, who flopped down and began to cut the lines in his fish that he said made it taste more “fishy” when he ate big chunks. Winter, on the other talon, sat in that stiff IceWing Position that he always sat in, which Kinkajou figured was about as comfortable as he could manage. Sky wasn’t much better, sitting straight up with his tail tucking his talons in as he looked around at the inside of the hut with wide eyed curiosity.

As they started to dig into their meals, Winter and Sky made some observations about RainWing architecture that set Kinkajou off on a bit of a tangent. She really loved surprising other dragons with all of the things that RainWings had.

“We’re a lot more advanced technologically than other tribes seem to think!” She emphasized. “There are still a lot of remaining prejudice that some dragons don’t notice because of old NightWing war propaganda.”

“The NightWings?” Sky blinked, a lavender shade of confusion shown in his expression. “Why did they make anti-RainWing propaganda? Aren’t they a part of your tribe?”

Kinkajou paused at this. She supposed that it hadn’t occurred to her that being raised by scavengers would mean that Sky didn’t know a lot about war history.

The smell of dead seafood suddenly made Kinkajou lose a bit of her appetite, so she passed the rest of the bananas over to Sky. Although, the bunch remaining seemed like they were actually bigger than Sky’s stomach was. He probably wouldn’t be able to finish them on his own…

“Hey Winter, why don’t you try one?” Kinkajou noticed that the IceWing had already finished his fish. He could probably eat a lot of bananas, seeing as he was “twice her size” and all.

Winter did not seem to agree with Kinkajou’s conclusion, though, making a face at the pile of fruit on the table. “I don’t try to make you eat meat.” He said. “Don’t try to make me eat fruit.”

“C’mon Winter, it’s not that bad.” Turtle chuckled, reaching forward to grab a banana for himself.

Kinkajou smiled at him. Turtle had always been a dragon that disliked things that made him uncomfortable. Flying long distances for quests, entering awkward social confrontations, eating weird foods… But even when he knew something made him uncomfortable, Turtle was a dragon who was willing to recognize the reasons behind his discomfort and attempt to overcome it. Sure, he used his animus magic to cheat, sometimes, but there had been a lot of things in his transition into living in the rainforest that spells wouldn’t help him adjust to. Watching Turtle adapt to the rain forest in his own time was something that had reminded Kinkajou of all of the things that she admired about him.

Watching him munch happily on bananas now, when she knew that he had never even heard of bananas as a dragonet, was something that gave her a warm, rose-pink feeling in her chest.

"You know,” Turtle commented as he swallowed down a bite of the fruit. “I hear they taste a lot better to meat eaters roasted..." He side eyed Sky expectantly.

The SkyWing seemed to notice Turtle's scrutiny, but for some reason averted his eyes towards Winter, ears flicked down embarrassedly.

"Sky doesn't have fire." Winter said. Then stepped closer and put his wing against Sky's in a way that Kinkajou thought was _very_ interesting...

"Oh!" Turtle blinked in surprise. "Is that.. er... a common SkyWing thing... Or..."

Winter gave him a sort of "drop it" stormy grey kind of look.

"Better off without, anyway!" Kinkajou jumped in, batting Turtle discreetly with her tail. She didn’t know why this was a touchy subject for their guests, but she didn’t want to make Sky feel uncomfortable. "Fire isn't very safe to have here in the Rainforest."

Turtle squinted at Sky, not seeming to have taken the several hints he had been given. "How old are you?" He asked.

"Uhhh..." Sky glanced between Winter and Turtle, seemingly uncertain of the tone of this social situation.

Kinkajou wasn't certain herself!

"Turtle!" She admonished. "You're being rude!"

Turtle blinked at her. "Oh! Uh, sorry." He said to Sky. "You just, uh- Suddenly I thought you looked like someone I knew- do you, um, know a SkyWing named Peril, by any chance?"

"Peril?" Kinkajou questioned, feeling her ruff go a bit purple with puzzlement. She looked at Sky again and... Oh, yeah, she sort of saw what Turtle meant. Something in the eyes...

Winter didn't seem to agree. He wrinkled his snout distastefully. "Not all SkyWings look alike, Turtle."

"Uh, who's Peril?" Sky asked.

Winter pursed his mouth sourly, but Turtle got to the explanation before he did.

"She's our friend." He said. "Copper scales, blue eyes that look a lot like yours. She works at Jade Mountain Academy on the security team, so you might've seen her there if you've been. She uh... Told me once, about how she had a twin brother who was born with no fire, but she, uh, thought he was probably dead..."

Winter made a face at him, but Sky's eyes widened enormously.

"Dead-?! How?" He asked, suddenly leaning over the table, getting kind of into Turtle's face.

Turtle didn't seem to mind. "Mother killed him." He replied.

Sky sucked in a breath. "Like, maybe she tried to drown him?" He asked in a rushed exhale.

Turtle shrugged. "Sure." He said.

"Hm." Sky seemed to take that in, leaning back a bit and looking down at his claws.

"So, I'm going to take that as a maybe on being Peril’s brother.." Turtle concluded.

Winter looked concerned. Like maybe he wanted to say something to the contrary.

Sky looked a little dazed. If he were a RainWing, Kinkajou thought that his scales might have gone a little pale from shock.

“I... uh…” “Can we- can we go see Wren? I need to ask her- wait, no she’s- No, she wouldn’t be a big fan of- but- well, I mean a sister is different from parents and…”

Winter frowned. “Hold on, Sky, you don’t really know for certain that Peril is your sister.”

“I… oh. You’re right, but I…”

“Why don’t you visit her and check?” Turtle suggested. “If it doesn’t work out, just tell her it was one of my narwhal-brained ideas, she’ll understand.”

Winter didn’t seem too happy about that idea. Kinkajou knew Peril wasn’t his favorite dragon, although personally she thought that her old winglet-mate was a delight. 

But even though he seemed displeased, Winter nodded at Sky’s request.

“If we leave now and fly fast, we could probably get to Jade Mountain by around her lunch break.”

Aww, that would mean they would have to leave before sun time, and Kinkajou wouldn’t be able to introduce Sky to the weavers… But on the other hand! Peril might be his! Twin Sister?! The drama! The intrigue! Kinkajou wanted to know where it was going.

“You’d better go right away then!” She insisted, ushering Winter and Sky to their claws with the brush of her flapping wings. “Oh, and make sure to send us a message letting us know you got home safely!” She added on, angling that such a message may include details about a dramatic sibling reunion.

"Oh, uh, yes, okay!" Sky seemed to warm up to this idea very quickly, standing up and jumping from claw to claw as he let Kinkajou guide him out of their hut.

Winter seemed more reluctant as he got up, eyeing the bony remains of his fish as if wishing there was enough left to be an excuse not to leave yet.

"Awww!" Kinkajou cooed at her friend in a teasing tone. "You, like, totally love us and want to spend more time with us, don't you?"

Winter made an unpleasant, greenish purple expression like she expected him to.

… but then it smoothed over, as if he had thought better of it.

"I do wish we could have stayed longer." He admitted. They were now outside the hut where Kinkajou had escorted them, her ushering wing still hovering over Winter's back. "You know I like visiting."

"Ah…" Kinkajou felt the bright yellow excitement she had felt at the chance to uncover a dramatic mystery soften into a rosier shade of affection for her friend who was trying to be honest with his emotions. "You big old softie… you know we like seeing you too." Kinkajou leaned forward instinctively and then paused. "Can I hug you goodbye?" She asked.

Winter blinked consideringly, only hesitating slightly before inclining his head.

Kinkajou felt her affection for her friend surging in her chest, as she got up on her tip toes to wrap her wings around him.

The cold scales shocked her slightly, the condensation on them from the warm rain forest air leaving water droplets on her wings.

Winter let her rock them back and forth slightly as she squeezed around his shoulders. 

"Make sure to send me that letter, you big galoof." She muttered.

"I will." He promised. Kinkajou remembered when Winter's voice used to be a higher, agitated pitch. She marvelled at how his now deep tone rumbled in the neck that rested on her shoulder as she squeezed him.

When Kinkajou backed up from this embrace, Turtle came up to bump wings with their IceWing friend in a gesture that was a little less in his personal space, but was no less affectionate.

"I'll come up and visit you in Sanctuary, soon." He promised. "To help you with those magical improvements, like we talked about."

"That sounds good." Winter nodded back at him. His tone was a little less stiff than usual. Kinkajou could tell that the idea really made him happy.

"Aaah, I won't be able to come because of the school…" Kinkajou sighed. "Make sure to come back and visit again for me, alright?"

"I will." Winter promised.

"I-it was nice to meet you both." Sky stood to the side, nodding his head a little awkwardly, as if hesitant to intrude on the goodbyes between such close friends. "Thank you for the food."

"It was good to have you." Turtle nodded back with some polite words. "Sorry you couldn't stay longer, but, uh, you know it's understandable." He said this last part as if he felt a little silly, considering he was the one who brought Peril up in the first place.

"Take good care of our Winter, now!" Kinkajou urged only half jokingly.

Sky made a strange expression at that, but Winter coughed embarrassedly before he could respond.

"Come on." His voice had regained some of it's stiffness as he started walking forward and stretching out his wings. "We better go now if we want to get there by the lunch break."

"R-right." Sky stuttered, only shooting one more glance back at Kinkajou and Turtle before following Winter in taking off from the rainforest.

"Have a safe flight!" Kinkajou waved at then goodbye even though neither of them looked back at her.

As she did so, she heard her boyfriend snicker from next to her.

"Hm. I think Winter won our water fight." He said.

As Turtle made this observation, Kinkajou became aware of the water droplets still sliding down her neck from hugging a cold ice dragon covered in condensation from the warm rainforest air.

"... Oh well." Kinkajou sighed, admitting defeat as she shook her scales out slightly. "It's almost suntime, anyway, so I think I'll manage to dry off."

"Ah, you're right." Turtle said, glancing sideways at the position of the sun in the sky. "We should go now if we want to get a spot together on a platform… or maybe we could do a hammock? Which are you thinking?"

Kinkajou smiled at Turtle, then, who she thought might be one of the few dragons in Pyrrhia who would have adapted to the RainWing custom of going a big nap in the middle of the day so readily.

 _Hmmmmmm..._ was her last thought before beginning to drift off on the platform in half sun and half shade that they managed to find… _Sun… nice… sleep… forever…_

And so, Kinkajou slept next to Turtle that Suntime, their bellies full of bananas and fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sort of going in book order here except winter is replaced with kinkajou so next is peril and then turtle, qibli, if i ever get around to it.


End file.
